236 Mamma Roma

[Michael]

Why can't you accept that heterosexual men can be spineless, brutal assholes without blaming on gay people? Martin Scorsese must be gay for insisting Jake not to get a hard on and allowing him to beat his wife nearly to death in Raging Bull.

[Brian C]

Again, the fact that they have a romantic relationship with a woman but choose not to physically come to their defense is where it becomes a gay issue in my eyes. In that, if they weren't gay and therefore more romantically attached to the victim, they might act stronger to avoid the incident/do more to deal with it after the fact.

This is exactly what's getting you in trouble here: making a causal link between the director's homosexuality and characters' misogyny. Stop doing it until you at least think about why people would find this demeaning.

You can't say that you don't mean to offend and then keep repeating the offensive thing after it's pointed out!

[Tom Hagen]

Why can't you accept that heterosexual men can be spineless, brutal assholes without blaming on gay people? Martin Scorsese must be gay for insisting Jake not to get a hard on and allowing him to beat his wife nearly to death in Raging Bull.

Michael, be careful with your examples or he'll start drawing up theories about Italians instead!

[TMDaines]

Why are people taking so much offense about a director's sexuality perhaps affecting the attitudes of his male characters towards women?

[Tom Hagen]

Because this entire way of phrasing it assumes that gay men inherently have some sort of problem with women.

[Michael]

Why can't you accept that heterosexual men can be spineless, brutal assholes without blaming on gay people? Martin Scorsese must be gay for insisting Jake not to get a hard on and allowing him to beat his wife nearly to death in Raging Bull.

Michael, be careful with your examples or he'll start drawing up theories about Italians instead!

Oh no. You're right. Now lets say David Lynch! Dennis Hopper hits the beautiful Isabella Rossellini until black and blue and bangs her fully clothed, screaming while another heterosexual guy stares on without doing anything about it. Hmm is David Lynch gay?

I'm sorry to let this carry on but Drucker's posts really gave me chuckles. Apparently he forgot one of the most beautiful and sensitive scenes of all cinema - Rocco and Nadia

[TMDaines]

Because this entire way of phrasing it assumes that gay men inherently have some sort of problem with women.

No it doesn't. Asking whether one's religion, whether that be Christianity or Islam, has affected that person's attitudes towards women, doesn't mean that the person asking the question believes that all Christians or all Muslims have problems with women.

[matrixschmatrix]

Because this entire way of phrasing it assumes that gay men inherently have some sort of problem with women.

No it doesn't. Asking whether one's religion, whether that be Christianity or Islam, has affected that person's attitudes towards women, doesn't mean that the person asking the question believes that all Christians or all Muslims have problems with women.

If someone said "Oh, I just found out the director of this movie was a Muslim. That explains why this character allowed a woman to get raped!" that would seem reasonable to you?

[Michael]

Because this entire way of phrasing it assumes that gay men inherently have some sort of problem with women.

No it doesn't. Asking whether one's religion, whether that be Christianity or Islam, has affected that person's attitudes towards women, doesn't mean that the person asking the question believes that all Christians or all Muslims have problems with women.

So gay men are born to hate women?

Christian or any religious values are learned. You have a lot to learn.

[Tom Hagen]

Again: his initial, dumbass post was a flippant "I didn't know those directors were gay, but it makes sense because of the shitty way that women are treated in their films."

[MichaelB]

Just to muddy the waters, it's worth noting that Rocco and his Brothers had six writers - Luchino Visconti, Suso Cecchi d'Amico, Vasco Pratolini, Pasquale Festa Campanile, Massimo Franciosa and Enrico Medioli, or seven if you count the inspiration from a novel by Giovanni Testori.

Clearly, Visconti called the shots, but that's not to say that he devised the scene in question - in fact, it might well have been the brainchild of Suso Cecchi d'Amico, a heterosexual woman (she's the only writer other than Visconti to get a story and screenplay credit).

Now if you were a Visconti scholar who'd examined the various script drafts and determined that Visconti was indeed responsible for those elements - indeed, that he insisted on introducing them over the objections of his co-writers - then you'd have a case, and a potentially very interesting one. But I'm not seeing any evidence aside from the vague and hugely offensive notion that the film might display misogynist tendencies because its director was gay.

[TMDaines]

So gay men are born to hate women?

Christian or any religious values are learned. You have a lot to learn.

How did you possibly derive that from my statement?

Be reasonable and consider this for a minute also: for many individuals religion isn't a choice as that is what they are brought up with and educated to believe. I'm an atheist (or maybe agnostic, as I really don't have any strong view) but I can appreciate for some people that their religion is as much a part of them as their mother tongue.

[knives]

Religion isn't in your genes though. It's a learned trait while gay is a genetic one.

[TMDaines]

I don't really want to debate on this as we're getting sidetracked from the original topic.

Is it really so horrific to hear someone linking a director's sexuality with the views of his male characters towards women though? Fassbinder was often accussed of misogyny in his work. There's a big difference between saying all gay men and misogynists and that the homosexuality of someone could interrelated with misogynistic views. I don't understand why people are getting offended by this second point? Someone's upbringing, education, culture, religion or any other number of things could be related with their misogynistic views, but one's homosexuality can not be?

[knives]

That would be like saying you can trace someone's misogyny to being black. The things you listed are not like Homosexuality.

[Michael]

I don't really want to debate on this as we're getting sidetracked from the original topic.

Is it really so horrific to hear someone linking a director's sexuality with the views of his male characters towards women though? Fassbinder was often accussed of misogyny in his work. There's a big difference between saying all gay men and misogynists and that the homosexuality of someone could interrelated with misogynistic views. I don't understand why people are getting offended by this second point? Someone's upbringing, education, culture, religion or any other number of things could be related with their misogynistic views, but one's homosexuality can not be?

Fassbinder put himself in the women characters of his films. Not only his women are attracted to men but they are mistreated horribly because that's how he was treated as a gay man. It is so absolutely wrong to pin misogyny on men simply because they are gay. Its like saying Kieslowski's films must be dumb because they are Polish.

[TMDaines]

I'm not entirely sure that's it's being scientifically proved that homosexuality is entirely down to nature rather than nuture, so forgive me, but even if that is true, at the same time homosexuality isn't a simple genetic trait like eye colour, nose shape or height. If homosexuality is a born trait, does that mean that misogyny is not? You're not really explaining you believe that someone's sexual orientation couldn't affect their views on the opposite sex.

[Brian C]

There's a big difference between saying all gay men and misogynists and that the homosexuality of someone could interrelated with misogynistic views. I don't understand why people are getting offended by this second point? Someone's upbringing, education, culture, religion or any other number of things could be related with their misogynistic views, but one's homosexuality can not be?

Well, it wouldn't make much sense to say, "Oh, that character's misogyny totally makes sense now that I know the director is a [Catholic/high school dropout/Southerner]" either, would it? Painting with that kind of broad brush is just asking for trouble, isn't it? I think you're granting the offending comments much more complexity than they actually merit:

Again, the fact that they have a romantic relationship with a woman but choose not to physically come to their defense is where it becomes a gay issue in my eyes.

[Michael]

I'm not entirely sure that's it's being scientifically proved that homosexuality is entirely down to nature rather than nuture, so forgive me, but even if that is true, at the same time homosexuality isn't a simple genetic trait like eye colour, nose shape or height. If homosexuality is a born trait, does that mean that misogyny is not? You're not really explaining you believe that someone's sexual orientation couldn't affect their views on the opposite sex.

Being gay has nothing to do with my view on women. Women don't give me a hard on and nothing more. Just simple as that.

[TMDaines]

Fassbinder put himself in the women characters of his films. Not only his women are attracted to men but they are mistreated horribly because that's how he was treated as a gay man. It is so absolutely wrong to pin misogyny on men simply because they are gay. Its like saying Kieslowski's films must be dumb because they are Polish.

Nobody is saying that. Don't keep strawmanning what the people on the otherside of the argument are saying.

I'm asking, whether it's possible that one's homosexuality could lead to negative views on the opposite sex?

[knives]

No, homosexuality and misogyny are totally unrelated and what you are asking is like whether it's possible that one being black could lead to negative views on white people? There's a possibility of indirect correlation I suppose, but there is no cause and effect at work here.

[Brian C]

I'm asking, whether it's possible that one's homosexuality could lead to negative views on the opposite sex?

It depends on how reductive you want to be. Of course anything is possible, if that's the standard you're looking for. Some black people actually are thieves. Presumably, some of them are thieves because they grew up in impoverished neighborhoods that were socially neglected because they were largely black, and hence developed conditions that were favorable for low education and, unfortunately, high crime. In this sense, you could probably, if you really wanted to, in a highly reductive sense say that their race led to thievery, since if they hadn't been born black, they would have grown up in more advantageous social circumstances.

It would still dumb and offensive to say, "hey, it totally makes sense for that character to be a thief, the director is black!"

[ambrose]

Pasolini's most profound and enduring relationship (despite his taste for rough trade) was with a woman (Laura Betti). Actress and keeper of Pasolini's flame.

Pasolini's sexual orientation to street boys and young crooks was well known, so her voluptuous exhibitionism had little personal attraction for him. Nevertheless he tenderly exploited her particular brand of sexual panache in his sketch "Le Streghe" ("Witches", 1966). In 1967, he cast her in his contemporary version of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Her next part was more substantial, in Teorema (Theorem, 1968), again with Silvana Mangano and the hypnotically seductive Terence Stamp. Betti plays against character as a humble, inarticulate servant in an aristocratic household in which Stamp appears as a kind of beautiful angel of erotic destinies and at once begins to fascinate and make love to all members of the family, including the father. Betti, too - paralysed, timid, speechless - becomes his victim. This role won her the Volpi Cup of the 1968 Venice Festival.

She worked with many other directors but she became more and more besotted by Pasolini, and considered herself to be his unique disciple. The film-maker treated her as tenderly as he felt able to do. But Betti was clear-eyed in her adoration. She wrote: "I think it was true love, deep and enduring." She wanted him to move into a studio next to her own. But Pasolini was cautious about becoming too close to her. None the less, they fell into the habits of a married couple: "We got used to one another," she wrote:

So we usually had dinner together. Then it was goodnight Laura, and he was off in his Alfa Romeo cruising for working-class boys . . .

With what tragic consequences we know.

[Soothsayer]

To point out, the scene in Mamma Roma being referred to in this recent debate, the boy doesn't "do nothing". In fact, he accepts a challenge to a fistfight and is beaten quite badly. After being beaten, the Bruna character voluntarily leaves with the other boys and says(something loosely translated, unfortunately I don't speak Italian) "Bye Ettore, see ya tomorrow".

[PillowRock]

Fassbinder put himself in the women characters of his films. Not only his women are attracted to men but they are mistreated horribly because that's how he was treated as a gay man. It is so absolutely wrong to pin misogyny on men simply because they are gay. Its like saying Kieslowski's films must be dumb because they are Polish.

Nobody is saying that. Don't keep strawmanning what the people on the otherside of the argument are saying.

The problem is that, yes, that is precisely what the original statement said: learned the simple fact that the director was gay, that fact alone made the misogyny "make sense". That statement only works at all, in *any* sort of logical progression, if one assumes that misogyny is either a "natural consequence" or a "typical cause" (or possibly "a prerequisite") of homosexuality in men. All of those connections are fallacies.

No, homosexuality and misogyny are totally unrelated and what you are asking is like whether it's possible that one being black could lead to negative views on white people? There's a possibility of indirect correlation I suppose, but there is no cause and effect at work here.

The sentence that you're looking for (to someone with sufficient mathematical background, anyway) is: "They're independent variables."